On Computers

"On Plants". The Complete Works of Aristotle, The Revised Oxford Edition. Edited by Jonathan Barnes, Volume Two.


Searle, John R. (1980) Minds, Brains, and Programs.

About the Authors:

Aristotle
Aristotle was a philosopher in ancient Greece. A student of Plato, he went on to create his own school. He was well known for his very systematic approach toward his topics. His range of topics was vast, from physics to biology, poetry to politics, and linguistics to ethics. Many of his findings were only proven correct in recent centuries, although the theories themselves were hundreds of years old.

John Searle
Searle is a modern day philosopher and a professor at University of California. Many of his works revolve around intentionality; that is, the part of the human mind that makes references and inferences to and from the world outside itself.

On Plants
The main motivation for On Plants was to analyze the hypotheses on whether or not plants have souls or intellect. His hypothesis is that plants do not, in fact, have souls. Aristotle argues that before one can make these statements, one must compare the aspects of plants to those of animals, which we assume to have consciousness. During his work, he describes many differences between plants and animals, and between plants themselves. He also compares the parts of plants and animals that are similar in nature and in function, but on the whole, he offers differences. Throughout his arguments, his viewpoint seems to gradually shift from a strong belief in his hypothesis to more of a curious middle ground, where he may be admitting that he cannot know for certain. However, although he does not explicitly state a conclusion in the end, on the whole his logic supports his hypothesis.

Minds, Brains, and Programs
During this paper, Searle argues against the basic principles of what is called "Strong AI". This is the belief that human intelligence can be duplicated through logical programs, and thus human consciousness can be understood. His argument is that "Strong AI", by definition, is impossible. His work argues for his main point in the first half of his paper, making strong points to support his claim. After this, he goes on to thoroughly shut down rebuttals of his theory from people whom he shared his intellectual exercise with. This exercise consisted of a man, who is put into a room where there are no observers. While in this rooms, he is given a set of instructions, in a language he can understand, to convert certain Chinese characters into a different set of Chinese characters. The man himself does not, in fact, understand Chinese; yet to an outside observer (one not in the room), he is participating and passing the Turing test. Searle argues that, while it does pass the Turing test, the system is not intelligent; the man has no understanding of what he is doing, in reality he does not even realize he is answering questions. The results of his paper is clear: "Strong AI" cannot exist by his arguments. He leaves little room for argument, giving sound reasons why it cannot be true and replying to arguments with thorough, even slashing, counterarguments.

While these two articles may seem at surface value to have nothing to do with one another, they in fact share the same basic principle: the human mind is not the simple product of structure and logic, but something else entirely. While Aristotle may have been wrong on many points during his thesis (basic principles of physics, biology, etc) his main idea remains a solid point in arguments about the human mind. I found both articles to be a great read, and found myself agreeing with both. For years I have thought much the same as Searle. I agree that AI cannot be duplicated through simple programs and logic. Instead, I believe that by creating an identical or similar structure to the human mind and a similar environment, AI will and must come to be on its own. This, in my opinion, is the only way for intelligence to emerge; intelligence is gained, not taught.

I am tentatively (and somewhat jokingly) calling my theory "True AI", as opposed to "Weak" or "Strong" AI. Strong has just been thoroughly taken down, whereas Weak can hardly be considered AI at all. This is one of the fields I wish to pursue.